


Primes

by squireofgeekdom



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Not-quite-angst but with a happy ending, POV Second Person, Spoilers through Dying of the Light, Thinking about Nyon and Overlord and Ambulon's death and Megatron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 00:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13752195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squireofgeekdom/pseuds/squireofgeekdom
Summary: Ratchet thinks about the Primes he’s known.Or: Heart over Head, always.





	Primes

Something that’s been said about you too many times to count - you’re the only Autobot to have saved the life of every Prime since Nominus.

It  _ grates _ . 

Not in the least because you’d rather not remember time spent treating  _ Nominus _ , but - but at some point you stopped counting Nominus, and certainly  _ Zeta _ , as Primes. You don’t know when it was - it hadn’t been just after learning that Nominus’s Matrix was fake, it hadn’t sunk in then -- but some time after Orion had become  _ Optimus,  _ some time after he had started getting used to the name - _ then _ \- well,  _ Prime  _ meant something different, then.

By  _ your  _ count, not that anyone cares, you’ve only saved the lives of two Primes. Optimus, and Rodimus.

There are a lot of different things people would say if you asked them to describe the difference between Rodimus and Optimus; and they would probably start with ‘well, you know the one that has flames painted on his chest?’ Rodimus is flashier, reckless, a daredevil and a risk taker - though you knew Orion Pax  _ far  _ too long and patched up  _ far  _ too many injuries to try and claim that Rodimus is the sole contender for the ‘most reckless’ trophy. 

It’s not that there isn’t  _ any  _ merit in those distinctions. But there’s something that’s struck you - more than once, now. 

Optimus - he gets attached to ideas. Ideals. Orion Pax could fall in love with someone’s words - you’d know, you watched it happen - and Optimus was the same mech, no different. When you’d first met - not your first meeting, but when you’d become friends - you’d talked about medical ethics, and Primus and his lack of existence. You’d talked about the feasibility of opening a clinic in the Dead End, and the relationship between medicine and long term societal change and opportunity. 

Rodimus - he gets attached to people. And that - that’s not hard for you to understand. Medical ethics textbooks and oaths are all very well, but at some point it comes down to a mech in front of you, moment by moment. You don’t choose who you treat. 

The work you do isn’t about thinking, not in the way Optimus does it, not when you’re in it. Simple procedures may eat up less processor space then they did when you were first training, you have more space to thinking about patient histories and triage and optimization than you used to - but when you’re working, really working, that’s all your processor is doing. You don’t think about the implications of the patient’s choice or the broader policy choices surrounding medical access. You just do it. It’s not that it’s about emotion or connection or  _ positivity  _ or whatever slag Drift would come up with. But you are  _ responsible  _ for your patients, when they’re under your knife, responsible, you think, in much the same way that Rodimus feels responsible for the people he’s attached to _. _

It’s easy to see that aspect of Rodimus, that attachment, on the Lost Light - with his crew, his people, claimed almost simply by proximity - but you know he has been that way since long before you met him, long before any of you met him. 

You don’t know everything, but Optimus - told you something of what happened in Nyon, at the beginning, when he still wasn’t used to the name  _ Optimus.  _ You’d seen too many people who’d grown up in places like that to think that Rodimus’d had any time for the luxury of hashing out ideology, or being choosy about who he gathered to his side. And any mech deemed a leader, deemed responsible for a -  _ ‘city’ _ like that, to have gathered others to him at that age - it would take what Rung might call an ‘outsize sense of responsibility for others.’ 

You can relate. It’s what Rung says about you. 

(You don’t think Nyon is a choice you could ever have made. There’s philosophical medical debate, on how much suffering is right to allow a terminal patient to endure, on when the chances of survival are too low to continue life support. The city was textbook, and yet - call it respect for life, call it dumb stubbornness, you don’t think you could have done it.)   
  
(You don’t know if that means it was wrong.)

Optimus is letting Megatron have - whatever round of second-third-fourth-nth chances this is now, he’s letting him have that chance, even though it’s utterly infuriating and idiotic to the point that you could hardly resist the urge to try and reach up and shake him, because - because he believes in the possibility of change. In growth, and redemption, and second chances. In freedom, even when it’s dangerous and undeserved. 

(Or maybe because he’s still the same mech who fell in love with Megatron’s words four million years ago. As Rodimus says to you, “He’s  _ desperate _ to believe that Megatron’s on the level.” Ideals only carry someone to a certain level of stupid.)

Rodimus? You don’t even know if Rodimus has thought about why he was so quick to trust Drift as an Autobot, why he elevated him among the Lost Light’s crew - sure, he must have an answer, he must have been asked. Maybe it would sound suspiciously like something Optimus would say.

But if you had to guess? You’d guess that there’s no ideology behind it but the simple adoption of Drift as one of  _ his people _ , a designation that only seems to see the future. 

That’s why it comes as such a shock when he banishes Drift. 

When Rodimus says that Drift had admitted culpability, you could only assume that it was the lead up to a slap on the wrist. For all that Rodimus seems to have adopted the entire crew for his own, Drift is still his - whatever. His  _ Drift _ . 

And then to have had him take the fall - 

You’re more upset with Rodimus than Optimus, and it’s a strange feeling. When did Optimus start feeling so distant?

There was a time when Orion, when Optimus was as close to you as anyone. When you trusted him, counted on him, first and foremost of your friends. There was a time when he would have listened to you, though part of you wonders whether that was as recent as you would like to believe, wonders if you haven’t fallen victim to information creep yourself. 

You’d like to think that it was just during your time on the Lost Light, since Optimus left Cybertron and had started going by Orion Pax again - that was when the distance had opened up. Time apart - though it certainly had been nothing more than a brief vacation compared to the time you had spent together. What was a year supposed to be, to you?

It must have started before then, and it’s killing you that you can’t place  _ when.  _ You don’t even know whether it’s  _ him  _ that changed, or whether it was  _ you,  _ that you had lost - whatever it even  _ was  _ that had made you worth befriending in the first place.

You stare down at your hands - once Pharma’s hands, now yours - wrapped around a datapad, bearing a list of names, a list with your name absent. You’ve lost more than your hands, you know that. Maybe - 

But you won’t get a chance to find out, now. Optimus will be leaving, now that he’s pawned off Megatron as someone else’s problem. Just like he left when the war ended. Just like he left on Earth. Hell, you love him so much, distance be damned, but lately it feels like he’s gotten too much practice at walking away.

Rodimus is still here. He’s standing next to you, results of the crisis vote carved into his hand, seemingly critically incapable of walking away. 

You hand the datapad back to him. “All I know is that we now live in a world where a Decepticon can murder billions of people and get a seat on the bridge of an Autobot ship. I suppose that makes your latest lapse in judgement easier to forgive.” 

You can still remember Rodimus’s - delight, almost, and triumph - when you had said you would join the Lost Light. He reminds you of Verity sometimes - her stubbornness, fierceness, but also the way her face lit up when she was happy.

You want him to do better, and not just because you’re on the same damned ship together.    

“On the assumption that you were after my advice, I’d say destroy the datapad and move on.”

You don’t know how Optimus would have destroyed the pad - you doubt, now, that he would have even bothered to ask your opinion about something of that significance - but he almost certainly wouldn’t have tossed it into the air and shot it right in front of you, and yet - you can’t even bring yourself to be annoyed by it.

“I don’t think I was ever really going to act on it.” Rodimus says, and with some surprise, you believe him.

“Good,” you tell him, “because it’s fake.”

“Is it? How do you know?”

You turn away

“Because my name’s not on it.”

\---

A memory keeps coming back to you.

“Did you even think ahead? At  _ all?”  _ You asked Rodimus, sitting on one of the medbay slabs. “A few  _ minutes  _ ahead, even?” 

Rodimus at least had the good grace to look chagrined. Somewhere in the back of the medbay there was a small noise that might be a traitorous snicker.

“ _ No  _ sense of self preservation. You could at least consider the fact that  _ you’re _ responsible for the people on this  _ ship  _ if you’re not going to worry about  _ yourself _ .”

_ That  _ was definitely a scoff. You glared in the direction of Ambulon and First Aid’s workstations, but there’s no obvious sign of the source of the mockery, the two apparently absorbed in work. You’d have bet on Ambulon.

“Sorry, Doc,” Rodimus said. 

“Tch,” You said, “The damage from  _ this  _ latest stunt would bother me less if it wasn’t coming on top of all of  _ this  _ underlying damage, here.  _ None  _ of which would be a problem if you kept up with regular maintenance.” You told him. “The fact that you’re in the medbay more than the rest of the crew does  _ not  _ mean you should be skipping checkups or basic maintenance.” 

First Aid had very quickly turned a snort into a cough. 

“Something to add?” You asked, in a tone that could uncharitably be described as ‘waspish’.

“No - nope.” First Aid said, between coughs. 

Rodimus, of course, took your momentary distraction as an excuse to get up from the slab. “Got it, Doc. Send me a reminder for -” He waved a hand, clearly trying to encompass ‘whatever you were just blabbing about’. 

And he was already out the door before you could say anything else. Of course. 

You turn back to your traitorous colleagues. “Anyone want to clue me in on what was so funny?”

Ambulon coughs. “I believe there is a human expression about ‘the pot calling the kettle black’?”

“ _ Excuse _ me?”

“I think what Ambulon’s saying is that it’s ironic to see  _ you  _ lecturing someone on self preservation.”

“I think you might be confusing me with someone  _ else,  _ who surfs meteorites for fun, or -”

“You did recite, very nearly,” Ambulon said, “the exact argument I gave  _ you,  _ at one point,” Which was a nice way of avoiding saying the name ‘Delphi’. “I think you listened about as well as our Captain.”

“Tch,” You slumped back to your desk.

“Basic. Maintenance.” First Aid pointed at the half-full cube of energon, now abandoned on your desk for hours. 

“Don’t you have equipment to sort?” You asked, picking up the cube, and the two of them shared a conspiratorial grin. 

Ambulon would  _ never  _ let you live down the time you and Rodimus had both said “No one’s dying on my watch,” within seconds of each other.  You half expect a stifled scoff from his desk, as you think of it. 

But his desk is empty. 

Ambulon is dead, and it’s your fault. 

You aren’t going to let Drift go the same way.

\---

“It had to be done.” Drift says, when he finally tells you that he’d fucking  _ volunteered _ to take the fall, as one of Rodimus’s co-conspirators. 

“And  _ you _ had to be the one to do it?” You ask, not bothering to hold back the frustration in your voice.

Drift just looks at you. 

“Tch,” You shake your head. “So, what, it was all your vision? You would have done that for -” You try to come up with the unlikeliest candidate, “- Grimlock, if  _ that  _ had been who you saw?”

“It was Rodimus,” Drift says, in his typical way of being needlessly obtuse when he doesn’t want to answer a question. “It was always going to be Rodimus.”

You roll your whole head back and stare at the ceiling, and are struck suddenly by how much Verity rubbed off on you. 

“So what, chucking you off the ship and into deep space ‘had to be done’ too? You just let Rodimus -”

“It was my idea.” Drift says, and you could shake him. He looks up at you, dry, self deprecating smirk slapped under dull optics. “Rodimus wanted to give me a slap on the wrist. Ground me, make me weld bolts on the hull -”

“And you told him to make you leave.” You say, skeptical.

“Most of the bots on that ship already didn’t trust me, Ratch, you think I wanted to stick around when they’d all been proved right? After they found out I’d gotten their friends killed?”

“It wasn’t you -”

“I may not have been alone, but - there wasn’t anything stopping me from doing something. I could have told Magnus. I could have stood up and told the whole crew before we even left Cybertron. So could -” He cuts himself off quickly. You  _ know  _ that it was more than him and Rodimus involved, but he’s adamant that he won’t say who the other co-conspirators were. “You saw what they did when they found out. You think I didn’t see that coming? You think I wanted to stay for that?”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what you told Rodimus.” You stare at Drift, arms folded, waiting. 

Silence.

“It would have  _ killed  _ him,” Drift says, staring at the floor. “The others - I - seeing that -” He takes a deep breath. “He would have said something, and and it would…” He trails off in the midst of rationalizing.

Silence.

“I didn’t want to - to see him like that. I couldn’t.” Drift says. “Not him.”

“Why  _ him? _ ” You ask, as though Drift can explain to you why  _ you  _ got on the fraggin’ ship,  _ twice. _

Drift smiles at you. “What would you have done, if it had been Optimus?”

You snort. “I would -”  _ have told him to frag off.  _ You start to say, but you can’t quite finish. 

Because Optimus had told you he was putting a  _ Genocidal Despot  -  _ who had personally torn him apart on numerous occasions, never mind what he’d done to you - or what he’d done to  _ Rodimus,  _ for fuck’s sake -- told you he was putting that very same mech who had  _ created  _ Overlord not only  _ on  _ the Lost Light but  _ in charge  _ of it.

And you -

You’d told him it was stupid, and irresponsible and  _ cruel  _ to Rodimus, who he should give a  _ damn  _ about, at the very least - and, again,  _ stupid,  _ and you might as well have gone outside and tried to throw rocks into one of the suns for all the change it made. 

And, for all your - angst and frustration and other nonsense about how distant the two of you had grown, for all that it hurt that he wasn’t  _ listening  _ to you like -- for all of that, you  _ went along with it. _

And for all that you could say  _ there was nothing I could have done -  _ frag, if  _ Drift  _ wouldn’t grant himself absolution for Overlord,  _ was  _ there something you could have done about Megatron? You  _ had  _ been the first one to tell Rodimus. 

Even if you couldn’t - even if - you still  _ enabled  _ it. Not just in silence, you’d  _ lied  _ for Optimus. Not just to Megatron, no, you’d lied to the whole damn crew, you’d made everyone believe that Megatron was  _ weakened _ . You’d made  _ First Aid  _ believe it.

And now you’d left all of them alone with him, none the wiser. 

Nevermind that Megatron wasn’t Overlord, or that the situations were different, or that Megatron hadn’t shown any signs of creating a river of Autobot corpses on the Lost Light  _ lately _ \- nevermind any of the rationalizations you can come up with. You knew it was wrong, and you can’t pretend that you would have done any of it if it had been anyone but  _ Optimus  _ asking, and that - 

Drift smiles at you sadly in your silence, damned kid.

You’re cursed by fucking  _ Primes. _

\---

Maybe it would be easier if you could  _ accept  _ that you’re going to die, here, in this building, on the Necrobot’s planet, but you’ve been in too many ‘last stands’ for this to even begin to feel real to you. Besides, there are patients to treat, and a makeshift medbay to prepare - you have  _ work _ to do.

At least you got Drift back here, you think as you make your way through the Necrobot’s home. At least whatever dumb luck Drift has had held, and the two of you wound up here. As much as you’d prefer  _ not  _ to be on a planet under siege, you can’t imagine being anywhere but here. With your patients - your  _ friends.  _ Your people.

“Ratchet!”

Rodimus, wild eyed, turning and careening across the hall, grabs on to you - hands practically vibrating - like you’re the last anchor in a storm. “ _ Thank you _ .” He says, and he doesn’t need to say for what. 

“Didn’t do it for you, kid,” you tell him, and he lets go. 

“I know,” He smiles - still blinding, still wry, but - more than chagrined,  _ saddened.  _ Guilt and  _ grief  _ at the edge and optics so bright they’re nearly white. “Thank you,” He reaches out and grabs your shoulder quickly. “For getting yourself back home safe, too.” And he’s racing back down the hall again, some other thing to put into order before they all die, but in the moment he says it, you half-believe that you  _ are  _ safe. 

_ Kids.  _ You think to yourself, in his dust, and realize - somehow, for the first time, you don’t know why it wasn’t obvious - that you’ve become one of Rodimus’s people, too. The thought makes you smile before you even realize your expression has changed.

There are worse things for you to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Lines from Ratchet and Rodimus's conversation about the datapad taken directly from MTMTE vol8.


End file.
